A conservative blog has dropped a bombshell into a Washington state legislative race between Democrat Amy Biviano, a Sunday school teaching mom, and the incumbent Republican Mark Shea. The Western Center for Journalism found Biviano’s “Women of the Ivy League” Playboy photo from 1995 when she was a Yale undergrad. See below for the photo. Biviano, then Amy Nabors, was a junior at Yale when the issue came out.

The censored version of Biviano’s picture is shown below. Want to see the uncensored version of the Playboy photo? Wizbang Pop! has the uncensored version.

” I didn’t do it for the money. It’s an expression of sexuality and it shows she the way I feel about myself. I was impressed with how much say I had during the shoot.”

–Yale sophomore Amy Nabors, on her experience posing for the upcoming college issue of Playboy magazine. nabors was offered $500 from a student group hoping to pay her not to pose; she used that offer to increase Playboy’s fee by $150.

The Spokane Review picks up the story:

Amy Biviano, the Democratic challenger in a high-profile battle for a legislative seat representing Spokane Valley, is defending a 1995 topless photo shoot with Playboy magazine as a confidence-building experience while she attended Yale University.

In an interview Friday, following a conservative website’s disclosure that Biviano appeared in a “Women of the Ivy League” edition of the popular men’s magazine, Biviano said she doesn’t regret the photo shoot but wouldn’t do it again as a mother.

“It was one of the youthful college kinds of things. I was interested in pushing my limits,” Biviano said Friday. “This was my small act of rebellion.”

Biviano, who said she earned less than $500 for the pose, is running against incumbent Republican state Rep. Matt Shea, who called the revelations “alarming” in a news release on Friday.

When Biviano, then Amy Nabors, was a college junior, her Playboy debut sparked anger among some feminists on the Yale campus. But Biviano argued she was a feminist, too, and that she had a right to pose if she wanted.

Biviano, now 37, said her topless photo shoot already was known among her friends and her sons because she’s never tried to hide it. Her husband, Andrew Biviano, was her boyfriend at the time and encouraged her to do the shoot. Not long after her first son was born when she was in her early 20s, Playboy asked her if she’d be interested in posing again. She declined.

Biviano’s opponent denied that they were involved, saying they knew of the photo before the race heated up but had instructed their campaign staff not to disseminate information about it. In a statement Shea said, “This type of negative campaigning is exactly what is wrong with politics today. While these revelations are indeed alarming, my heart goes out to Amy and her family.”

Doesn’t bother me. I can’t see how it should take away from who she is and what she wants to do as a representative.

Ogrrre

Yes, such stuff is only relevant when it was done by a Republican. Right? For example, among the KosKids and others on the Left, nothing Obama did as a youth is relevant, but everything Romney did is relevant. Obama’s religion is not relevant, Romney’s is. So, I hope that you guys are applying one set of rules and standards to everyone, because the Democrat Party and the MSM (redundant) certainly do not.

Digg34

Pretty lame isn’t it? It’s okay that Obama admitted to heavy use of pot, but if a republican admitted to the same, he would be a felon.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

Did anyone criticize Bush for being a heavy drug user?

Clinton?

The hypocrisy comes in Obama punishing people for something he’s done in his past.

Digg34

Did anyone of those admit to heavey use of illegal drugs?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

Clinton – ” I smoked, but I didn’t inhale”

Bush used cocaine

Obama was known for weed and cocaine which John Sununu wants to talk about when he was in Hawaii.

herddog505

Raise your hand if you DIDN’T do something stupid when you were younger.

[crickets]

Thought so.

http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

There are reasons why I will never run for office… lol.

LiberalNightmare

meh

ackwired

Nice…if I lived in Washington I might have to rethink my decisiion not to vote for Republicans or Democrats.

retired.military

I am with you.

mfow3

Who cares??

http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

She was certainly ‘Playboy Pretty’ back in the day – polished and airbrushed… and very attractive still. I’d say her husband’s a very lucky man. And this doesn’t have anything to do with her qualifications or lack there of for the office, as far as I can tell.

EricSteel

This is why I find I am visiting Wizbang less and less. The insipid outrage du jour articles are boring. The only reason that this is even a story on Wizbang is because she is a Democrat. If she were a Republican, this would of course be a big issue on the Democrat blogs. But why stoop to their level?

Bill_M

And if she was the Republican in this race, I’m sure the Dems would put out a statement just as understanding as Shea’s statement…NOT!

http://www.facebook.com/roguei1 Mathew Plank-Photography

Bill, I am not sure where you are from, but we have pretty good legislators in the Spokane area. Our Repulican Sheriff and other republican businessman have backed Amy. Too bad you opened your mouth without knowing anything!

Wild_Willie

I thought it was very important to know that Mitt Romney cut some guys hair in high school. That was relevant. The hypocritical left strikes again. ww

Michael Wagner

Being a bully and posing for a pictorial are two very different things…I can’t see how you can compare the two?!?!? The idiot right strikes again!

http://www.tempeteaparty.org Lee Reynolds

Romney was a bully decades ago. Obama is a bully today. Come January he’ll be petulant has-been.

proterozoic

As a liberal, I’m feeling really bad about this election… Romney is on the verge of a historic victory. My friends are all freaking out, too…

http://www.tempeteaparty.org Lee Reynolds

Marxism is bad, and the guy who is in the White House now is a committed Marxist. He claims otherwise of course, but that is just the cover story. Say one thing, do another. This is his way, and the way of most Marxists in America. They can’t win elections by running on what they believe, so they do a bait and switch, or in Obama’s case run on platitudes and vague phrases like “hope” and “change” into which voters pour their imagined understanding of those terms. This will fool many of the people much of the time, but not enough to fool them twice.

Romney isn’t a perfect candidate and will not be a perfect president, but he’s better than the alternative. When given the choice between the Devil and the Town Drunk

I’m a classical liberal. I believe in personal freedom, personal responsibility, and the government staying the hell out of the way. I believe that dependence is tantamount to slavery because the worst thing you can do TO someone are those things that can and should do FOR themselves.

The problems that we face as a nation are created by we the people and will not be solved by the state, no matter how well intentioned or well funded the efforts of the state may be. You can’t fix broken people. Government programs won’t change someone’s character or cause them to make better decisions.

Uh, exactly who – besides a partisan pseudo-journalistic website – is making a fuss about what Amy Biviano did while she was in college? It seems to me that what she did back then is irrelevant to her current political campaign.

Is there evidence from an actual news outlet that Washington State’s legislative race has been rocked by news about Biviano’s past, or is it the partisan imagination of the aforementioned website? Even Biviano’s political opponent saw no need for that particular part of Biviano’s past to be revealed.

This is one time when Republicans should respond by yawning.

Joe_Miller

Everyone should live long enough to regret things they did in their youth.

Par4Course

She’s nice looking and was nicer looking in her Yale days, but that has nothing to do with her qualifications or lack thereof for being in the Washington legislature. After all, our President, with his usual modesty, described himself to the women on The View as “eye candy.” While I suppose this photo cuts against Amy’s image as a “Sunday school teaching mom,” I don’t think this will do the Republicans any good over all, as Mr. Shea apparently realizes, based on his sympathetic comment.

mikegiles

I just know one of her friends advised her not to do it, probably using the reason “Don’t do it – suppose you run for office some day”! That friend deserves a phone call, and a you were right!

http://www.tempeteaparty.org Lee Reynolds

I’m shocked, shocked to find that women are naked under their clothes!

The great thing about being a libertarian is that crap like this doesn’t matter to me. She’s a Democrat, and therefore almost certainly a leftist. She would therefore not be getting my vote if I lived in her district.

Were she a Republican, and especially a fiscal conservative, I’d likely have no trouble voting for her.